Austin Sarat and Thomas R. Kearns
Anteprima del libro
DIVThe concept of culture
is troublingly vague and, at the same time, hotly contested, and law's
relations to culture are as complex, varied and disputed as the concept of
culture itself. The concept of the traditional, unified, reified, civilizing
idea of culture has come under attack. The growth of cultural studies has
played an important role in redefining culture by including popular culture and
questions of social stratification, power and social conflict.
/divDIVLaw and legal
studies are relative latecomers to cultural studies. As scholars have come to
see law as not something apart from culture and society, they have begun to
explore the connections between law and culture. Focusing on the production,
interpretation, consumption and circulation of legal meaning, these scholars
suggest that law is inseparable from the interests, goals and understandings
that deeply shape or compromise social life. Against this background, Law in
the Domains of Culture brings the insights and approaches of cultural studies
to law and tries to secure for law a place in cultural analysis. This book
provides a sampling of significant theoretical issues in the cultural analysis
of law and illustrates some of those issues in provocative examples of the
genre. Law in the Domains of Culture is designed to encourage the still
tentative efforts to forge a new interdisciplinary synthesis, cultural studies
of law.
/divDIVThe contributors
are Carol Clover, Rosemary Coombe, Marjorie Garber, Thomas R. Kearns, William
Miller, Andrew Ross, Austin Sarat, and Martha Woodmansee.
/divDIVAustin Sarat is
William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science,
Amherst College. Thomas R. Kearns is William H. Hastie Professor of Philosophy,
Amherst College.
